


The Huntsman

by ishafel



Category: Merry Gentry - Laurell K Hamilton, Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-26
Updated: 2011-01-26
Packaged: 2017-10-15 02:59:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/156335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishafel/pseuds/ishafel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean Winchester goes to Faerie. AN: Post S2 SPN, spoilers for all eps. Nonspecific post series for Laurell K Hamilton's Merry Gentry books, no spoilers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Huntsman

There is one place where hell can not touch him, nor heaven save him: Faerie, where all roads run, and none. He lives for a year, less a day. He hunts, with Sam at his side, and all the demons of hell run before him. On the last night before his time runs out he goes to sleep satisfied.

He wakes up, driving on a straight stretch of empty highway, alone, darkness ahead and behind him, and no memory of how he came to be where he is. He pulls the car over to the side of the road and grabs for the gun he keeps in the glovebox. Its weight is familiar in his hand, cold and smooth and comforting as the hand of a lover might be for another man.

He gets out of the car and stands in the empty lanes, staring up at the unfamiliar stars that line the sky, constellations visible from nowhere on earth. He does not realize how quiet it is, until it is no longer quiet. Out of the blackness comes the baying of hounds, the hoofbeats of a dozen horses, the jingle of bits, the noise of voices. He stands his ground, with his back against the car.

After a moment he sees a glimmer of light, smells a hint of smoke, and then they are upon him: white hounds, long-legged and fleet, with red ears and yellow eyes and voices like molten metal. And just behind them, horses of every shade, with long, tangled manes and tails, and riders clad in silks and carrying torches and swords.

Their leader is a woman, neither young nor old, surpassingly beautiful, moonlight pale with midnight hair down her back, on a white stallion. She knees him forward, to the edge of the circle cast by the torchlight, and she says, "Dean Winchester. I have been waiting for you."

Dean keeps the gun on her. His brother is a monster, and his soul belongs to hell; he has nothing to lose by shooting her. "Who are you?" he asks. "What are you?"

"So ignorant, you children," she says, but she sounds sad and not indignant. "I am Andais, Queen of Air and Darkness. Everything that is said in the night comes to my ears in the end, Dean Winchester, and all who hunt in the night are of my kingdom."

He knows her now, by that name: she is a Queen of Faerie, ruler of the Unseelie Court, the most dangerous and ruthless woman ever born, and the fairest. No weapon he has can kill her, and no prayer he knows can stop her. He puts down the gun.

"What do you want from me?" he asks.

She smiles at him, her teeth sharp and pointed and white as a cat's, inhuman. "I find myself in need of a huntsman," she says. "Will you wear my livery and hunt my hounds? Will you run my enemies to the ground?"

Dean's eyes are adjusting to the darkness. He can see, now, that the riders with her are men, mostly, clad in armor or silk. Their hair is as long as hers, and their faces as beautiful, and no two of them alike. One of the torchbearers has a horse at his side with an empty saddle. "Who is it you hunt?" he demands.

"Who is it I hunt, little mortal?" she asks. "Who is it you hunt, these things that are neither mortal nor immortal, neither dead nor living? I hunt what I please, Dean Winchester, humans and animals and Sidhe, goblins and demons. Who is there to stop me? Will you join me?"

She is offering him a reprieve, she is offering him a different kind of damnation. "If I do--," he says.

"Hunt with me for a year and a day," she answers. "Choose what quarry you will. And I will send you back to what you had and what you were. Refuse me, and hell may have you."

No son of John Winchester can fail to recognize an ultimatum when he hears it. "No, lady," he says, because he does not know her proper title. "I will not refuse you." He wonders, looking at her, what it would be like to bed her. He can see cruelty in her, wildness, but also a willful and capricious kindness.

She leans down to offer him her hand, and he kisses it. Her man brings the spare horse forward, and he takes it. It is a black mare, bigger than any of the other horses, with a plain head. He strokes her neck, gentle, half-afraid, and she pins her ears and dives at him, teeth closing, just, on empty air.

He has ridden before, and he remembers what to do. Before he can recant he shoves his foot into the stirrup and swings his leg over her back. The queen lifts her hand, and they ride away. He does not look over his shoulder at the Impala, waiting where he left her, the keys still in the ignition, abandoned in the breakdown lane of a road that runs from nowhere to anywhere. He does not think of the real Impala, parked outside a cheap motel room where Sam will be sleeping, still, unaware that the world has ended a day early.

The black mare is ugly, but her trot is smooth and her stride is long. Dean has no trouble staying on her. The queen is beside him, her men behind them, her hounds ranging in front of them, noses to the ground. In the distance, it is growing lighter. Dawn is breaking.

They leave the road, and the enter the forest, and the queen's torchbearers fall back. Wherever they are, it is like nowhere Dean has ever been. This is a place men have never been; some of these trees are older than America. Some of the leaves they ride on are older. It is dark, still, but he suspects that it will always be dark, even in full daylight. One of the hounds scents something, and then they all do. They follow it, some of them giving tongue. The queen and her men wait, eyes on Dean, while he dismounts. Whatever it is, it has seven toes on each foot, and claws, and it smells faintly of sulphur.

He swings back into the saddle, and Andais leans over to hand him a horn made of silver and bone. It should not be so easy, but when he raises it to his lips and blows, the notes ring out, clear and clean in the still morning. The hounds run before him, so close together a blanket would cover them, noses to the ground. The black mare beneath him feels as powerful as his car ever did, straining to be away. And the queen smiles at him, eager and ancient and dangerous and beautiful.

This is not something he ever imagined, but he thinks that maybe it is what he was born for, what he's spent his life training for.


End file.
